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Monday, 1 September 2014

WrestleMania 31: The Long Game

WrestleMania 31 is still over six months away. There are
no matches announced for it yet, obviously, but it's already looking like a
show on which WWE could enhance a number stars. And if WrestleMania's not a
show which can enhance stars then frankly no WWE show is.

Payback 2015 headliner? Stay tuned!

Let's start at the top. Roman Reigns challenging Brock
Lesnar for the WWE world heavyweight championship is clearly very likely.
Pretty much everyone thinks that's going to happen, and with good reason. By
ending The Streak and easily taking the title from John Cena, Lesnar has established
as an unstoppable force. In the world of wrestling an unstoppable force will
always be stopped, and the WWE hive mind seems to have its act together enough
at the moment to realise that a rising star would benefit most from doing the
stopping.

Reigns beating 'The Beast' for the title in the
WrestleMania main event would make him. There's a chance that the audience
could turn on him in that situation because he'd be seen as a golden boy, a man
hand-picked by management rather than fans, and because Lesnar, as the dominant
heel, would likely be getting cheered at WrestleMania. But it's a risk worth
taking. And WWE should be expecting the possibility of hostility for Reigns too,
which might help them curb it (though I doubt that). But no matter the possible
backlash it’s worth trying because it would get Reigns over in such emphatic
style.

The other two star-making opportunities I foresee ever
far further into the realms of fantasy booking than Reigns and Lesnar. The
first is Rusev v Cena. It's clearly going to happen at some point and the
natural place, in my mind, is WrestleMania 31. By that point Rusev will have
had a year-long push and should be one of the most hated men on the roster. He
won't be undefeated, because he's already suffered DQ losses, but he could
still boast unpinned and unsubmitted. A foreign menace with a fearsome
submission hold is the prototypical Cena foe (somewhat surprising as he’s face
very few people who match that description in meaningful matches). After facing
Wyatt this year I'm hopeful that the new approach with him at 'Mania's is
working with rising names in grudge matches with no titles involved.

The trouble with this scenario is obvious to anybody who
knows their WWE. Basically, Cena doesn't lose matches like this. He goes in
there, does his version of selling for a bit, gets put in the heel's submission
hold and powers out or kicks out of their finisher, and AAs them into oblivion.
I'd hoped that the Wyatt match at WM30 would see a change to that routine, but
no. If Cena v Rusev gets saved until WrestleMania there's a very real
possibility Rusev will suffer his first main roster televised pinfall or
submission loss. Because John Cena is the man that saves America from
villainous Russians.

It's less about Cena overcoming Rusev and more about Rusev overcoming Cena.

If we think positively this match could do wonders for
the upper reaches of the WWE roster. A win over Cena would turn Rusev into a
made man. He'd be the man who overcame everything, not entirely dissimilar to
another Lesnar (not really an issue as there's no guarantee Lesnar will stick
around for the remainder of 2015 and even if he does he'll appear
infrequently). In other words Rusev would be ideally placed as a challenger to
a babyface WWE champion.

Rusev versus Reigns in a post-'Mania programme may not
sound electrifying now but if both men were coming off career-making wins it
would be a different story. That, however, is not the feud I'd like to see. It
could be easily held off until SummerSlam 2015. I think a better and more
likely programme would be Reigns versus Rollins. It's a more desirable feud
that has a natural starting: Rollins cashes in his Money in the Bank 'tract on Reigns
either at WrestleMania or in the closing moments of the following evening's
RAW, stealing his title, his spotlight and his moment all at once. Reigns could
chase Rollins for the gold for a couple of months before regaining it in time to
deal Rusev his first loss at SummerSlam. If Reigns found himself booed for
being the chosen one in the rivalry with Rollins his follow-up tussle with 'The
Super Athlete' would get fans back on side. Nothing gets WWE fans riled like a
foreigner being proud of where they’re from.

The other star-maker WWE have at their disposal is Triple
H. Is he the best wrestler ever? No. But he is a significant name in WWE and a
victory over him, particularly a clean one, is still a pretty big deal. Anybody
who's over could be elevated by a 'Mania programme and win over 'The King of
Kings' and I'm sure there'd be a strong argument for putting Dean Ambrose in
the spot. The thing there is that Ambrose he already massively over. He'd
benefit from the match but not as much as others. If WWE keeps giving him the
same level of creative freedom as they have been and taking the same booking
approach he'll remain massively popular.

Cesaro would probably be a favourite for most too, but I
think a better choice would be Bray Wyatt. At time of writing Wyatt's stock has
fallen. His matches with Chris Jericho have struggled to rise to average and he
was booked to face (and lose to) Cena in a meaningless TV main event on the
August 25 RAW. This isn't about his character not working or losing popularity.
I don't think either of those statements is true. It's about WWE having a
performer who four months ago felt like he was going to become something huge
and doing nothing with him.

Why has Wyatt been allowed to simmer?

Getting Wyatt back on track with a face turn and a
programme with The Authority would put him back at the top and make it clear
WWE sees him as a major name. Which is exactly what they should see him as.
With Corporate Kane, Seth Rollins and Randy Orton all linked to 'The Game' and
Luke Harper and Erick Rowan linked to ‘The Eater of Worlds’ there would be no
shortage of build-up matches. In fact the issue could start out as a feud
between Wyatt and Rollins or Orton. Hey, if Batista came back they could do
Evolution versus The Wyatt Family. If there's one thing we've learnt about WWE
over the last eighteen months it's that they know how to put together a six man
tag when the mood takes them.

Wyatt beating Triple H would be big. By the it happened
he'd probably already be one of the company's top faces, that match would just confirm
to everyone that he was staying on top. 'The Man of a Thousand Truths’ could
even be put into a post-'Mania programme with Rusev. A loss there wouldn't
hurt, he'd be over enough to take it and it would further enhance Rusev in
preparation for his SummerSlam showdown with Reigns.

To sum up: make Reigns with Lesnar, Rollins with Reigns
(and the magical golden briefcase), Rusev with Cena, and Wyatt with Triple H.
That would give WWE four new main event calibre performers to mix with Cena, Orton and Daniel Bryan (who'll presumably be healthy by then).
Five including Ambrose, who, as I've already said, could become a top guy just
by continuing to do what he's doing around main event names. Then they could
start work on establishing another batch of guys, headed by Cesaro.